Not All Angels Fly
by DrWorm
Summary: [Pet Sematary] Being dead isn't all it's cracked up to be. Victor Pascow/Louis Creed. Can't you just smell the weirdness?


Notes: Written for the contrelamontre challenge on livejournal. Use the first line "Even watching him felt like being a voyeur." Tada. 'Tis a strange meld of book and movie, but it is here. 

Not All Angels Fly

Even watching him felt like being a voyeur. Which is exactly what being a ghost was all about. A ghost could be anywhere at anytime, watching anything, and not be seen. He'd watched Rachel give Gage a bath, he'd watched Ellie play dress-up with Church and get a nasty scratch on the back of her hand, he'd watched Rachel and Louis make quiet and subdued love.

But mostly the spirit of Victor Pascow watched Louis Creed sleep. He would sit, completely unnoticed, at the foot of the bed. He had no place else to go. Watching had become his only option, his only pastime. 

He wished there was more he could do. And that was the fascination with Louis, this ever-intrusive need to be there and be watching. Moments before his death, some sort of cosmic knowledge had filled Victor. And then, mere seconds later, he'd forgotten it. When his soul had dis-

Dis-

_Discorporated__.___

He'd never heard the word before his death, but found that he now liked the sound of it. He couldn't actually say it of course, not out loud; his vocal cords no longer functioned; he no longer had a body to call home. But he found that he still had a voice, somewhere inside of him, and it wasn't quite the same one he'd been blessed with when he was alive. It was more hollow, more solemn, and it echoed in the empty chasms of his consciousness. 

He knew something was going to happen to Louis, and he didn't want that. He wanted to help this man, this stranger who had tried to make him comfortable as he had died. Louis still had Victor's blood on his hands, though he had not been at fault in any way. 

Communication took so much energy. Being visible, even only to Louis, had been exhausting—if, of course, Victor could even feel such a thing anymore. He'd been disappointed at Louis' cold reception to him, though he couldn't blame the man. A far cry from the sweetly handsome young college student he had once been, Victor's soul had physically manifested itself as his slowly decaying corpse, grotesque head wound and all. Clad in his red gym shorts and grey sweatshirt to boot. It was almost silly enough to laugh at.

But not quite.

_He's a ghost. But he's a good ghost!_

When he'd touched Louis, slowly bringing his pale hand around the man's neck, tickling his hairline with long elegant fingers, he'd nearly gasped at the lack of sensation. He could feel no heat, no softness, no texture. It made him ache for the humanity he could not leave behind. But Louis had shuddered. Clearly, he'd been able to feel Victor's touch perfectly. 

He'd wanted to ask what it felt like, wanted to suck the verve from this healthy human being and share his life vicariously. But the intrinsic need to warn, to help, to show Louis something even he himself did not understand the full potentials of was far greater. And thus, they'd had places to go. 

Was his touch very cold, he who had once been warm? He who'd had a fiancé and had been on track to a career in electrical engineering, had loved cars and puppies and running? Victor stared down at the legs he still though of as being his own and swung his feet against the bedside gently. They passed through the lace of the comforter without causing any external movement. He was still wearing his old sneakers, the dirty ones with the smudge of green paint on the toe.

It was very difficult to make what was only a collection of thoughts and ideas held together by desperate will into something solid that could touch and be felt. The blood and bits of brain tissue that dropped off of him were nothing in the world of the living; they could not be seen, smelled, or felt in any way. But Victor felt their absence quite acutely. He was deathly afraid of losing too much of himself, especially before…

Well, something was going to happen. And he'd known it when his heart still beat and his brain still functioned, even though it was halfway out of his skull and dripping on the carpet. And then he'd died and it had been sucked away from him, except for the foreboding knowledge that there was something coming, something big, and he didn't want Louis to get hurt. Not Louis. Not the good Doctor Creed.

He stood and rose from the bed; he left no indentation. The two were asleep, Rachel and Louis, but he only had eyes for Louis. Good old Lou. Mr. Creed, who had a beautiful family, an alive family. And who deserved to have it stay as such.

Victor knelt beside the bed, close to Louis' sleeping face. He put his hands together as if in prayer and stayed very still for a moment. "Our Father, who art in Heaven…" he began to say in the voice that no one but him could hear, and then hesitated. He had yet to see God, or hear any mention of him in this dismal and taunting afterlife. He laced his fingers together and lay his head down beside Louis' so that he could closely examine his eyelashes which fluttered in sleep and his nostrils which twitched with breath. 

He felt as if he was suddenly privy some great and powerful beauty which he'd taken completely for granted in his lifetime. He reached out a spectral hand and brushed a lock of hair from Louis' face. The hair moved, not as if under the power of a hand, but as if a small gust of wind had blown it back. Louis' eyebrows twitched, and Victor smiled. He leaned forward, his blood-smeared lips kissing Louis tenderly on the forehead. Another twitch, but Louis did not awaken. Victor was not trying to awaken him. He wanted to watch him sleep. 

"Sometimes," he hissed unhappily to himself, his voice unheard in the darkness, "Dead isn't better." 


End file.
